Selfless love meaning
7 Simple Ways to Love Selflessly
Love is the most powerful of all emotions. It can make us feel happy, sad, love can make our hearts race with anticipation and love can even make us feel anxious. But love isn’t just an emotion. Love is a verb – it’s something you do.
We are constantly told to love one another but sometimes that doesn’t come easily or naturally for some people. This post will talk about 7 ways to love selflessly in your relationships with friends, family members, and significant others.
What It Means to Love SelflesslyIn order to love selflessly, one must be able to give freely and not expect anything in return because love is freely given. It’s when you choose to love someone even if they don’t love you back and unconditionally.
Love can be tough sometimes, but in order for your relationships to work and survive the hard times, both people must learn how to give and take selflessly because we all make mistakes from time to time.
To love unconditionally is love without limits, and it doesn’t expect anything in return. Don’t hold onto grudges because you never know how much time someone has left on this earth to make things right with them or wait until it’s too late.
Remember that love is love. It doesn’t matter what form it comes in as long as you are kind and appreciate those around you for who they are, unconditionally!
2. Give love without expecting anything in return.When you love someone selflessly, it means that you are willing to love them even if they don’t love you back or treat you the way that other people do. You should be willing to put your feelings aside and ignore any rude behavior because love is something we give freely not selfishly.
It is a choice not based on how we feel at that moment. You’re going above and beyond what most people would do to show their love for another person.
When you love someone selflessly, it means that you are willing to love them even if they don’t love you back or treat you the way that other people do.
It isn’t about being asked or expected, love comes from within us as selfless people who learn how to open up our hearts regardless of what the other person has done in the past. Love takes a lot of courage and is something we should not feel afraid to express.
4. Give love all of the time, not just when it’s convenient.There will be times in your life where love and relationships are difficult and you’ll find yourself having to make a decision on whether or not love is worth fighting for.
When we choose love over fear, we feel empowered and whole again because love makes us complete — even if that love is for ourselves.
Love isn’t love unless it’s freely given and without limits. It can be difficult at times but shouldn’t require you to wait until the time is right – if you love someone, show them that love all of the time even when things aren’t going your way.
Love must come from the heart and soul. It is something we should never take for granted because, after a while, love becomes our everything and gives us hope when times get tough. It’s not about trying to love someone because you feel obligated to love them.
Love is a choice that we make alone based on what our heart and soul wants – follow your feelings no matter how difficult it may be in the moment.
6. Love yourself first so that love can flow freely through you.It’s about loving yourself so that love can flow freely through you because it takes a lot of courage and is an incredible feeling when it comes from within us.
Loving others is easy but what matters most, in the end, is how much love we have for ourselves because love isn’t love until you give it to yourself.
7. Treat others how you want to be treated.The Golden Rule is something that everyone should abide by, regardless of whether love comes into play or not.
Love doesn’t mean that you have to like everyone but it does mean treating them the way we want to be treated instead of taking advantage and using someone for our own personal gain.
Final ThoughtsThere are many ways to love selflessly, and these seven simple ideas can help you find the one that resonates best with who you are. Whether you’re looking for a way to put your talents into action or make an impact on someone else’s life, following through on any of these practices will lead to more happiness in your own life.
What is selfless love and why it matters
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“Love is never wasted, for its value does not rest upon reciprocity.”
~C. S. Lewis
The most powerful emotion is, without a doubt, love. It comes in many different forms and, although the most recognizable form of love is the one with which we are most familiar with, the most powerful form of love, lives a softer existence.
SELFLESS LOVE MEANING
Loving our significant other, friends and family is easy, since they usually respond in kind. Therefore, when we give our love, we get something in return. It’s an ideal situation. However, quiet, unassuming, selfless love, is the more powerful, yet a rather elusive sensation. It usually reveals itself when we do things out of the kindness of our hearts, not requiring or even expecting anything in return.
The power of unconditional, selfless love lies in the fact that it’s not motivated by a reward or a benefit. If your aim is to make the world a slightly better place, there are many things you can do, however, only one is guaranteed to have an impact. Selfless love in the form of kindness and compassion.
Good to know: The science behind mindfulness and meditation
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
While the idea of being more compassionate is appealing to many people, it is often quite difficult to consider the feelings of individuals we don't know while making a conscious (or sometimes unconscious) decision to behave in a specific way.
Often, it is our “inner selves” which impede the way of true compassion.
However, it is only when we mindfully step outside of ourselves, look beyond our own busy lives and recognize how our words, actions or behaviors affect the lives of others, we realize that we have the power to make a tremendous difference – a positive difference – not only in other people’s lives, but also in our own.
RECIPROCITY AS A LIFE CURRENCY
Although it doesn’t cost anything to be kind to others, the idea of putting others first, without any expectation of reciprocity, has become quite a foreign notion in a world where selfishness and greed are constantly rewarded. Somehow, we have been led to believe we must be ruthless, with keen instincts to compete against one another for resources and to accumulate power and possessions.
Our individualistic and competitive society has come to expect that, if we are sympathetic to one another, it’s usually because we have ulterior motives. If we are decent to each other, it’s only because we have succeeded in controlling and overcoming our biological instinct of brutality and selfishness.
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Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. Although for centuries, philosophers have debated whether human beings are fundamentally good or evil, it was the philosopher, Marcus Aurelius who described quite simply, “Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” These words, written nearly two thousand years ago cut to the core of what it means to be a compassionate human being.
Moreover, recent research, by a diverse group of scholars from Harvard and Yale has found that our innate instinct is to be selfless and that people are willing to make sacrifices for the common good.
Good to know: How to embrace the joy of missing out?
FORWARD SELFLESS LOVE
Selfless love creates an instant connection, whether brief or eternal, which makes people feel like their existence matters, that they matter. Even the smallest act of kindness can have far-reaching consequences. Being kind to others, often also teaches us to be kind to ourselves.
Because, love, when freely given to others, very often finds its way back to us.
Also read: How decluttering your emotions?
Show you care with a gift from Mudita ♥Giving someone a mindful alarm clock, like Mudita Bell or Mudita Harmony can be a thoughtful and practical way to show your love and appreciation for them. By giving someone an alarm clock as a gift, you are not only showing you care, but also supporting their efforts to prioritize their sleep and lead a healthy, balanced life. Proper sleep is crucial for maintaining physical and mental health, and can help to improve mood, cognitive function, and overall quality of life. By giving the gift of an alarm clock, you are demonstrating your concern for your loved one's well-being and helping them to prioritize the things that matter most.
Overall, giving someone an alarm clock can be a small but meaningful gesture which demonstrates your care and affection for them.
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Selfless selfless love not waiting for a reward (according to the story of I. A. Kuprin "Garnet Bracelet") (Garnet Bracelet Kuprin)
and from reality in our dreams, that another return to reality brings us pain and disappointment. And we run from the slightest troubles of life, from its coldness and insensitivity. In our pink dreams we see a bright future, in our daydreams we are again trying to build crystal castles in a cloudless sky.
But there is a feeling in our life that is so close to our dreams that it almost comes into contact with them. This is Love. With him, we feel protected from the vicissitudes of fate. Since childhood, the foundations of love and affection are laid in the minds of everyone. And each person will carry them through his whole life, sharing with the outside world, thereby making it wider and brighter. thereby making it wider and lighter. But sometimes it seems that people are more and more grounding their own interests, and even feelings become victims of such a landing. They harden, turn into ice, shrink. Happy and sincere love has to be experienced, alas, not for everyone. And even it has its ups and downs. And some even ask the question: Does it exist in the world. And yet, I so want to believe that this is a magical feeling, in the name of which for the sake of a loved one you can sacrifice the most valuable - even your own life. It is about such a disinterested and all-forgiving love that Kuprin writes in his story "Garnet Bracelet".
The first pages of the story are devoted to the description of nature. As if on their miraculous light background, all events take place, a beautiful fairy tale of love comes true. The coldish autumn landscape of fading nature is similar in essence to the mood of Vera Nikolaevna Sheina. According to him, we predict her calm, impregnable character. Nothing attracts her in this life, perhaps that is why the brightness of her being is enslaved by routine and dullness. Even during a conversation with her sister Anna, in which the latter admires the beauty of the sea, she replies that at first this beauty also worries her, and then “begins to crush her flat emptiness ...”. Vera could not be imbued with a sense of beauty to the world around her. She was not a natural romantic. And, seeing something out of the ordinary, some peculiarity, she tried (albeit involuntarily) to ground it, to compare it with the outside world. Her life flowed slowly, measuredly, quietly, and, it would seem, satisfied the principles of life, without going beyond them.
Vera married a prince, yes, but the same exemplary, quiet person as she herself was. The time had just come, although there was no question of hot, passionate love. And now Vera Nikolaevna receives a bracelet from Zheltkov, the brilliance of the garnets of which plunges her into horror, the thought “like blood” immediately pierces her brain, and now a clear feeling of impending misfortune weighs on her, and this time it is not at all empty. From that moment on, her peace is shattered. Together with the bracelet, having received a letter in which Zheltkov confesses his love for her, there is no limit to the growing excitement. Vera considered Zheltkov "unfortunate", she could not understand the tragedy of this love. The expression "happy unhappy person" turned out to be somewhat contradictory. Indeed, in his feeling for Vera, Zheltkov experienced happiness. He ended his life on the orders of Tuganovsky, thereby blessing his beloved woman. Leaving forever, he thought that the path of Vera would become free, her life would improve and go on as before.
But there is no way back. Saying goodbye to Zheltkov's body was the climax of her life. At that moment, the power of love reached its maximum value, became equal to death. Eight years of bad, selfless love, demanding nothing in return, eight years of devotion to a sweet ideal, selflessness from one's own principles. In one short moment of happiness, sacrificing everything accumulated over such a long period of time is not for everyone. But Zheltkov's love for Vera did not obey any models, she was above them. And even if her end turned out to be tragic, Zheltkov's forgiveness was rewarded. The crystal palace in which Vera lived was shattered, letting in a lot of light, warmth, sincerity into life. Merging in the finale with Beethoven's music, it merges with Zheltkov's love and eternal memory of him.
We would so much like this tale of forgiving and strong love, created by I. A. Kuprin, to penetrate our monotonous life. I so wish that cruel reality could never defeat our sincere feelings, our love.
We must multiply it, be proud of it. Love, true love, must be studied diligently, as the most painstaking science. However, love does not come if you wait for its appearance every minute, and at the same time, it does not flare up out of nothing, but it is impossible to put out strong, true love. She, different in all manifestations, is not a model of life traditions, but rather an exception to the rules. And yet, a person needs love for purification, for acquiring the meaning of life. A loving person is capable of sacrifice for the sake of peace and happiness of a loved one. And yet he is happy. We must bring to love all the best that we feel, that we are proud of. And then the bright sun will surely illuminate it, and even the most ordinary love will become sacred, merging into one with eternity. Forever...
Mutually penetrating love - Orthodox encyclopedia "The ABC of Faith"
The need for love is deeply rooted in human nature. In the IV century. The holy fathers wrote that the personal manifestation of God the Trinity, the image of relationships within the Trinity represents communion-love.
Intra-trinic love relationships in Byzantine theology are described by the concept of perichoresis (περιχώρησις), the literal meaning of which is “to go around in circles”. In man, as the image and likeness of God, love is also his main need and essential property.
It can be assumed that in us, as the Image of God, there is this unconscious need for perichoresis – interpenetration and interchange, as a reflection of the mode of existence of the Persons of the Trinity in Communication-Love.
The human person also cannot exist outside of communication. In communication - love, carried out in the manner of being of the Most Holy Trinity, a person achieves personal perfection, fully realizing such personal characteristics as freedom, openness, uniqueness
“The natural foundation of love,” wrote SPbDA professor S.M. Zarin, - is the unity of the origin of people, the identity of the universal human mental and bodily nature of all people. Each person, being only a “partial, far from complete, expression of the universal human essence”, feels, on the one hand, the incompleteness, the insufficiency of his personal life in its separateness, isolation from other personal human lives.
A person strives to fill this insufficiency with the mental content of other personalities in interaction with them. On the other hand, he feels the need to share with other people his personal natural gifts, that special thing that he received from the Creator. The attraction of one person to another for the possible close association of their lives for the purpose of mutual replenishment is the nature and essence of natural love.
Love touches everyone. Much has been written about love; and many different ideas, images, concepts, types of love are described. About the love of a man and the love of a woman. About the love of a mother and the love of a son. About the love of a father and the love of a daughter. About love for a friend and love for one's neighbor. And especially about the love of God.
Is it the same love, or is it not?
Love can be expressed in different ways:
Selfishness and pride, petrified insensitivity, indifference are obstacles to love.
The Greeks wrote about different types of love: eros and storge, philia and agape…
Love-eros (ἔρως) is not just a physical attraction, but something more sensual and spiritual, it is a spontaneous, enthusiastic love, passion for another person. Some Hesychast Fathers, speaking of the relationship of a person with God in mental prayer, use the term "Divine Eros".
Love-philia (φιλία) is a passion for the mental, spiritual qualities of a loved one, a loving person “sees”, respects the personality of another, this is love-friendship. To Christ's question, "Do you love me?", Peter replies: "Yes, Lord! You know I love you." (John 21:15) And if the verb αγαπαω is used in the Lord's question, then in Peter's answer we see just the verb φιλέω, akin to love-philia. The Lord Himself tells the disciples “I no longer call you slaves, <…> but I called you friends (φίλους)” (John 15:15).
Love-storge (στοργή) is kindred love that parents experience towards their children.
Agape love (ἀγάπη) is the most sublime of all types of love, selfless, disinterested, self-denying love for one's neighbor, regardless of his skin color, gender, age or position in society. This is love, in which the willingness to serve another person, help him and sacrifice for him is manifested.
And Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychotherapist, understood agape in this way. This love represents the final stage of the erotic relationship, only it penetrates most deeply into the personal structure of the beloved, enters into a relationship with him as with a spiritual being. The gaze of the one who loves penetrates through the physical and mental "dress" of the spiritual core to the irreplaceable and incomparable core of another being.
Man is the integrity of the body-soul-spirit, and the fullness of love must also be manifested at all levels of such trinity. The soul, the human psyche is built on the foundation of maternal love.
Love has a very special meaning in Christianity, which is called the religion of love. Christianity appeared precisely as a revelation about love, but such love as the world has never known before.
Holistic Christian love-agape is possible only when a person loves God with his whole soul in its integrity and all its separate parts: emotions, feelings, reason, will, etc. That is, Christian love-agape is not only an emotion, but it is the mind, and the will, and everything else together and holistically. In fact, this is the relation of a whole person to another person, as a whole, by and large, this is the relation of a person as a person to another person as a person (and to God, as a Person).
The love of God is important for a believer.
For a Christian, love is the main commandment of his life: “Love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:32). And “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). Love for God ennobles, directs and warms all other manifestations of this feeling.
Christian love is sacrificial. And the highest example of this is the death on the cross of Jesus Christ.
Humanistic psychology asserts that the main human need is the need for self-realization, self-realization, which is realized to the greatest extent in the “contribution” of one person to another. A. V. Petrovsky called this the need for personalization - to be a person and leave a trace of one’s existence in another person (this is the deep and not always realized basis of such non-utilitarian forms of communication as altruism, recognition, empathy, empathy and help to another person, service). Petrovsky calls this self-fulfillment the otherness of the personality.
Can this contribution be called love? Or is it the realization of the self?
Freedom is identical to love, Met. John Zizioulas. “We can love only if we are persons, that is, if we allow the other to be truly different, while at the same time being in communion with him. If we love another despite the fact that he is different from us - or, more precisely, he is completely different from us - then we experience freedom as love and love as freedom.
Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) reflects on this in the following way: “love shifts the life of the lover into the face of the beloved: the existence of the faces I love becomes the content of my life.”
The Holy Fathers wrote about the perichoresis of the Trinity – Their interpenetration of each into the other as a way of Existence. And here is how Martin Buber writes about the “human” perichoresis. Martin Buber's deep understanding of love for another can probably be seen as a projection of the Divine Love of the Trinity onto human relationships.
Martin Buber described two types of relationships between people: I-IT and I-You.
I-IT is when one person for the Other is a means, a function without reciprocity. “I” in this case is an observer, “IT” is analyzed. There is no equality, reciprocity here, these are hierarchical, vertical relationships.
The I-Thou relationship is the mutual experience of the OTHER, the empathic relation of the “I” to the OTHER.
There is no “I”, there is “I-YOU”. With each “YOU”, in each moment of the relationship, “I” is created anew. "I" needs "YOU" for its becoming. "I" is formed by the response of the Other. "I" hear "YOU". The “I-Thou” relationship is a horizontal, not a hierarchy, it is an equality, and the form of this equality is a dialogue. Buber further writes: man has to live mainly in the world of I-IT; living exclusively in the YOU-world, we would burn in a white flame.
Entering into the relationship “I-Thou” speaks of a mutual perichoral intention to allow one's “I” to know the being of “You” and turn back to oneself.
A man's love, as a rule, is more objective, focused on the external manifestations of the woman he loves. A woman's love is more subjective - for her, as a rule, the inner world of another is more important and significant - who is he and what is he?
Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh in his book "Love and Intimacy: Search for Spiritual Meaning" analyzes the phrase "I LOVE YOU" in detail.
I - what is usually written in large print, LOVE - just a union, YOU - something relative. The connection process should be like this: "I" and "YOU" are balanced as "LOVE" ceases to be a union, a bridge connecting two pronouns and acquires a quality. The quality that changes the relationship itself. There is a moment when the relationship is so balanced that the one who loves feels himself with all the intensity, but with the same intensity of the other, gives him value; and then, if the feeling becomes deeper… then there comes a moment when we realize that we have become a point on the periphery, and he is the center… Relationships are not – looking at each other; it is a relationship between the One, absolutely central, and the Other, existing only for the former... towards it. Now in this “I LOVE YOU” - “I” has become so narrowed that it exists only objectively, and subjectively a person has already forgotten himself. Now the word "LOVE" matters, which includes "I", because the center has become "YOU-OTHER".
It happens. I love you, with the emphasis on the word "I". You are the object of my love, and love is the chain with which I hold you captive; the fishing rod with which the slave is caught. One must realize the horror of the situation when everything is considered from the point of view of my advantage! The first thing we must do is to tear our attention away from ourselves and turn it to God and man - to everything, just not to stare at ourselves - warns Metropolitan Anthony.
A variant is possible, reflects Martin Buber, when “I” no longer need “You” – this is when a person transcends himself, goes beyond himself to God. The divine YOU flashes into human relationships when they become mutual, sacrificial and authentic. Each YOU is a momentary reflection of the eternal YOU.
Love cannot be contained within itself. For its main property is to pour out on someone. Not needing anyone, God, by the abundance of His grace, creates man and the world. Christian love for neighbor, imbued with humility, extends to all people without distinction of their nationality, beliefs, way of life and behavior.
The ascetic loves sinners, and sees all people as good. In such a mood, he is imbued with pity not only for all people, but for the whole creation, he has a "merciful heart."
As defined by St. Clement of Alexandria, Christian love is "a constant, reasonable, friendly and precautionary readiness to promote the benefit of other people." Thus, we see that Christian love for the Other is wider than the concept of M. Buber's love (rather conjugal) - here everyone else is a neighbor. And there is no higher love if you lay down your life for your neighbors.
The stereotype of perception of love only as emotions or feelings, prevailing in everyday consciousness and psychology, is incorrect. If love is an interpenetration, a contribution to another, then it is more than just a feeling. Love is the spiritual state of a person in all its integrity.
Love is the state of the whole being. Love begins when I comprehend with all my being, I see the deep essence of the other. Any beauty can be mutilated, spoiled.
And the thing of love is to look at a person and at the same time see in him his inherent beauty - and be horrified by what life has made of him. Love is both pain about the imperfection of a person, and jubilation about his beauty. To love means to enable a person to open up in fullness. To love not for virtues, but in spite of imperfections, to love simply because he is a man. This is very important, especially in marriage - only love can help him become everything he can be, as God intended him to be.
Thus, love is a complex mental and spiritual phenomenon, in which mind, feeling, and striving take part. Love is a personal state, a state that reflects the spiritual level of human development. A state that spills on everything and everyone, on everyone around a loving person, without forcing or suppressing others. “By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the breath of his mouth all their strength” (Ps. 32:6). The world was created by the energy of love, poured out according to the all-good will of God, by the Word of God.
